Maria Graziano Strom

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Company Description

The St. John Providence Health System's Van Elslander Neuroscience Center of Excellence is home to one of the nation's leading multidisciplinary neuroscience teams. SJPHS offers one of the most comprehensive programs in the region, featuring world-renowne
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Maria Strom has served as Vice President of Patient Services & Operations and Chief Nursing Officer at St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital since 2002.Prior to joining St. John Providence, she was a nursing site leader at Oakwood Hospital & Medical Center-Dearborn for Women's and Children's Acute Care.She began her career as a Pediatric staff nurse.Maria has been actively involved in teaching throughout her career, first as a staff developer in Pediatrics and NICU and later as a Maternal Child Health educator.
She served on the adjunct clinical faculty, School of Nursing at Oakland University and later as a professor in the School of Nursing Pediatrics/OB.

Maria earned her BSN from Mercy College of Detroit and a Master of Science in Psych/Mental Health Nursing from the University of Michigan.Maria lends her expertise to many professional organizations including the University of Detroit-Mercy Advisory Board, Shiffa Advisory Board, University of Michigan Community Nurse Leader Advisory Board, and Oakland University School of Nursing Community Board.She was honored as an Athena Award Nominee (2003) and a Nightingale AwardNominee (2000) and is a member of Sigma Theta Tau.

"We've got the perfect storm here , a shortage of health care providers just when the mass of our population is going to require health care services," as it ages, said Maria Strom, chief nursing officer for St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital.

"We knew we needed to do something different."

According to a statewide workforce study by the Detroit office of Watson Wyatt Worldwide for six local health care systems, the state can expect to see a shortage of 18,000 nurses by 2015, Strom said.

The six local health care systems looked at in the study , St. John, Detroit Medical Center, Henry Ford Health System, William Beaumont Hospitals, Oakwood Health System and Trinity Health , will have a combined shortage of 10,000 nurses, she said.

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A new, internal contingency nurse pool, dubbed FlexChoice, has helped St. John attract more than 200 new nurses who would have otherwise gone to a contract agency, said Strom.

Under the program, the more flexible a nurse is in their work schedule, the more they can earn.As a side benefit, St. John has nearly ended its use of contract nurses, saving $2 million in agency fees, Strom said.

St. John also has established a nurse residency program to provide hands-on orientation for nurses and is working to recruit nurses from places such as Taiwan, China, India and the Philippines through an intensive, two-year process.So far, the effort has brought 48 new nurses to St. John, Strom said.

And St. John is working with local colleges like Madonna University and Oakland University to recruit nurses who've returned to school to refresh their skills and to train college students in their last year of school, minimizing the amount of on-site orientation needed.

To increase retention, St. John has also created a senior nurse consultant position for veteran nurses who can't meet the physical demands of bedside care, through a pilot program at Providence Hospital in Novi.In the new role, they serve as mentors for new nurses.

The health system is incorporating a safe-lifting program from its parent Ascension Health, in an effort to reduce the number of back injuries nurses suffer, Strom said.

Several Six Sigma projects underway at the system are targeting more efficient processes for bedside care.

For example, up to 60 percent of a nurse's time typically is spent hunting for and gathering equipment, supplies and lines, Strom said.St. John Hospital in Detroit hired four "runners" about six months ago to track down equipment for nurses and deliver it within a specified time, investing about $250,000.

In its first year, St. John estimates the new "equipment on demand" program will save an estimated 13,104 hours of nursing time, the equivalent of six nurses, St. John said.

"The nurses say this is the best thing we've ever done in years, so we know it's working," Strom said.

"We've got the perfect storm here - a shortage of healthcare providers just when the mass of our population is going to require healthcare services as it ages," said Maria Strom, chief nursing officer for St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital.

...

The new program has recruited more than 200 new nurses who would have otherwise gone to a contract agency, said Strom.And as a side benefit, she added, $2 million in agency fees has been saved since nearly ending the use of contract nurses.

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"The nurses say this is the best thing we've ever done in years, so we know it's working," Strom said.

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I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. I understand that I will receive a subscription to ZoomInfo Community Edition at no charge in exchange for downloading and installing the ZoomInfo Contact Contributor utility which, among other features, involves sharing my business contacts as well as headers and signature blocks from emails that I receive.